Bravery of Red Marauder restores pride after the falls

Someone sighted the Ark just before the start of the Martell Grand National. Eleven minutes of agonising action later, just four of the 40 that set out came home, not quite two by two, but in straggling pairs, several minutes apart.

The exhausted single file was led home by 33-1 shot Red Marauder, ridden by Richard Guest for Durham permit-trainer and owner Norman Mason.

For the last third of the race, Red Marauder and eventual runner-up Smarty were in not entirely-splendid isolation, as a combination of rain, bottomless ground and melees on each circuit quickly reduced the field to a handful.

The first pile-up happened at the Canal Turn and was a mini-version of the Foinavon incident of 1967. The riderless and more significantly blinkered Paddy's Return, initially on the wide outside in midfield, decided to run right down the fence, blocking off a number of fancied runners, including joint-favourite Moral Support and last year's runner-up, Mely Moss.

Half a circuit and some more steady erosion later, The Chair contributed to the numerical if not physical carnage - happily no horse or rider was seriously injured - as Edmond barely rose at the fence and somersaulted over the other side.

That was another seminal moment, for just five fences later, it was Edmond, also blinkered, who made a manoeuvre in the opposite direction to Paddy's Return's a few minutes earlier.

Edmond, one of three 10-1 joint favourites with Moral Support and the gambled-on Inis Cara (an early faller), came straight in on Blowing Wind. At the time Tony McCoy appeared to have a double-handful, after Blowing Wind had taken beautifully to the unique Aintree fences.

Fortunately for Beau, who was on the inside, and Smarty, widest of all, they escaped the unwelcome attentions of Edmond, but Blowing Wind was joined in the "robbed" corner by last year's winner Papillon and Ruby Walsh, as well as Lance Armstrong.

Moments earlier another drama had unfolded in this most incident-packed of races. Carl Llewellyn noticed that the reins had come over Beau's head and he was unable to correct it effectively, or steer properly, unseating independently of the Edmond fiasco.

These casualties left the scene just as Guest and Red Marauder were making their move into his challenging position on the inside.

By now, television cameras and spectators' necks were craning back and scanning along the first line of fences for any sign of a remounted horse, and McCoy and Walsh were to be spotted getting back on board.

Meanwhile, the leading pair took turns to appear in the ascendant. First Smarty, galloping strongly on the outside, offered what seemed concrete expectations for a Mark Pitman success to add to his mother Jenny's great training exploits, including two wins, in the race.

Then Red Marauder took control and back on the racecourse the result was cast in history. Once or twice, as they battled, the leading pair, especially Red Marauder, took a liberty with a fence, leaving a small spurt of hopes for supporters of Blowing Wind and Papillon, but in the end the first pair were already on the way back to unsaddle as the intrepid remountees approached two from home.

Briefly, it seemed as though they might come home together, in a fraternal gesture of solidarity, but it became clear that Blowing Wind, 2001's version of Honey End, the luckless, badly-baulked pursuer of Foinavon, would keep last year's winner out of third.

Red Marauder is trained under permit in Durham by businessman Norman Mason, for whom Guest doubles as jockey and assistant trainer. As Mason generously asserted afterwards: "Richard does everything."

Mason trains on farmland close to many infected foot and mouth areas. He has developed his all-jumping yard into one of the most successful in the country. Mason names most of horses with the `Red' prefix, having seen buildings in the Chinese quarter of Toronto painted red for luck. In a typically uncanny coincidence where the race is concerned, the 2001 Grand National was the first broadcast to mainland China.

Red has indeed been the lucky prefix for the National, with Red Rum gracing the winner's circle three times and Red Alligator once since the 1960s.

Guest, 35, whose father, Charlie, was a jockey and then trainer, comes from a notable racing family. His brother, Rae, trains successfully on the Flat in Newmarket. Three sisters, and his cousin, Richard Rowe, are all closely involved in racing.

After a career based in the south, during which he rode a Champion Hurdle winner, he moved north. Always passionate, for a while Guest was best known as the man who threw away his licence in a north-country weighing room, announcing his retirement after a disciplinary disagreement.

Now he will be known as the man who "did everything" to win the Grand National for his grateful boss.

The Daily Telegraph Award for the leading rider at the three-day Grand National meeting was won by Adrian Maguire.